20

“I’m sorry about Feng,” Jason said.

Johanna shrugged, pretending not to care. “I don’t even know why I’m so upset. I hadn’t talked to him in ages, and we weren’t really together that long. But I have good memories of him. And this place.”

Bourne said nothing. He knew the power of memories better than anyone.

“I lost the kid,” he told her. “But I saw him outside Holtzman’s building. He’s an assassin.”

“So the Chinese are closing in on the Files, too,” Johanna murmured. She held up her hand, and Jason helped her to her feet. She rubbed the tears away from her face. “They must have guessed that someone from Mr. Yuan’s team stole the Files. I’m sure they’re hunting for all of them. But why would they be surveilling Holtzman? How would they even know about him?”

Those were good questions, but Jason had already guessed the truth. The Chinese had infiltrated the mygirlnextdoor app as part of their data hack, which meant they were either working with Cody or spying on his operation. One way or another, they’d learned about the hit man and the blackmail. So they’d been planning to track Holtzman to his target, just like Bourne.

But Bourne couldn’t mention any of this without telling her the rest of the story.

“Holtzman was in the Files,” Bourne said. “I’m sure the Chinese have had him on their radar for a while. They may be watching some key needles in the haystack to see if anyone goes after them for extortion.”

“Maybe.” Johanna frowned. “Or maybe you’re still hiding something from me.”

Jason hesitated. He almost told her about Tati. He wanted to tell her about Tati. Johanna was skilled in the field, and he might need an ally when it came to the final confrontation with Cody. But he also remembered Shadow’s warning.

She’ll turn on you as soon as the Files are within reach.

“I’m not hiding anything,” Jason lied.

The look on her face made it clear she didn’t believe him. Her voice turned dark as she stared at the body on the floor.

“Well, Feng can’t tell us who grabbed the software. The kid made sure of that.” She looked around the small apartment, which had been thoroughly searched. Cushions and pillows knifed open, ­stuffing pulled out, cabinets emptied, boxes strewn across the floor, drawers overturned. “But it looks like Feng didn’t tell the Chinese anything, either.”

“Do you think Feng had the Files?” Bourne asked.

Johanna shook her head. “No. He really was off the grid. Look around. No computers, no devices, no charging cables, no nothing. You’re probably right that the Chinese have been watching multiple targets. My bet is they’ve known where Feng was for a while and wanted to see if he made a move or reached out to the others. But if the kid saw you at Holtzman’s place, then they must know we’ve identified Garrett. He ties the Files to Mr. Yuan and Jumpp. So the Chinese can’t be patient anymore. They’re going after the whole AI team.”

“Would Feng have been in contact with the others?”

“Probably. I got the feeling they were all close. They might have had back doors or some other ­low-​­tech way to exchange messages. But we’re not likely to crack that. Meanwhile, if we can’t find them, the Chinese will start picking them off one by one.”

“So who are they?” Bourne asked.

Johanna kept looking around the apartment, as if she’d missed something. “There were five of them, plus Mr. Yuan. Feng was second in command, and then four others, three men, one woman. Lee, Bai, Haoyu, and Caiji. All single, no family in the U.S.”

“And they quit at the same time?”

“Yes, they walked out together. They must have been planning it for a while. They left the company and disappeared. As far as I can tell, they never even went home. They must have known the Chinese would be after them.”

“Were there any rumors about why they left?”

“Plenty, but it was mostly people blowing smoke. Nobody knew anything. My guess is they saw what the government planned to do with the AI engine they’d built, and they didn’t like it. But Mr. Yuan was the only one who went public about leaving. He sent his resignation letter to the Wall Street Journal, talked about spending too much time away from his wife and daughters, wanting to go home. He said the usual shit about being proud of his work, proud of his people, proud of Jumpp. I don’t know, maybe he figured that would keep him and his team safe. He was wrong.”

“How did you find Feng?” Bourne asked.

Johanna looked around the apartment again, her brow furrowing.

“Actually, he found me. I was doing some pretty cool AI shit on the dark web. I wasn’t too particular about who I sold it to, and some bad people got their hands on it. That’s why Shadow found me and brought me to Treadstone, remember? Anyway, I got an email one day in Salzburg from some anonymous avatar. He’d tracked me down, which I didn’t like to begin with. Then he pointed out some errors in my code, which I didn’t like even more. He said I should be careful because the errors might give Interpol a way to find me. It pissed me off, but it told me the guy was sharp. I followed a long trail of generic accounts and finally connected his IP address to this building in San Francisco. From there, it was pretty easy to figure out I was talking to Feng. That was pretty cool. In my world, the whole Jumpp team was legendary. I didn’t tell Feng I was coming. I just showed up.”

Her eyes shifted to the body at her feet again.

“Fucking CCP.”

She shoved her hands in her pockets and examined all of the apartment’s walls, which were mostly empty and painted in a drab shade of beige. She shifted to the small bedroom and did the same thing. Bourne followed, noting the disarray everywhere. The search had been thorough.

Johanna went to an empty hook on the wall and pinched it between her fingers.

“What are you looking for?” he asked.

“Feng kept a framed photo of the whole team in the bedroom. It was from the cover of Wired. That was the only thing he seemed to keep from his past. But now I don’t see it. No way he would have gotten rid of it. Those people meant too much to him.”

Jason checked the floor. He noticed a sprinkling of glass shards near the side of the twin bed, and when he crouched down, he found a large wooden picture frame with a few glass fragments clinging to the edges. The matte had been torn from the back, revealing half of a pencil sketch of Chinese mountains.

“Was this the frame?” he asked.

Johanna nodded. “That was it.”

“No magazine cover.”

“No. That’s Huangshan, where Mr. Yuan and his wife were killed.”

“So what happened to the Wired cover?” Bourne asked. “Did the kid find it? Was it hidden behind the sketch?”

“No, Feng wouldn’t have made it that obvious. Hiding the photo like that, that’s amateur shit. He replaced the cover with something else, something that would have meaning to anyone on the team. Or to me, I guess. I wonder if my messages really made it to him, and he knew I’d be coming to see him eventually. He wanted me to remember what used to be in that frame in case something like this happened.”

Jason frowned. “Why?”

“To make sure I went looking for it,” Johanna said.

Then her eyes widened. “Oh, shit, shit, shit.”

She bolted from the apartment. Jason ran to catch up with her, slamming the door shut behind them. They went down the stairs and out to the street, and Johanna ­fast-​­walked down the Sacramento hill. It was dark and quiet. They made it back to Stockton, where most of the shops and restaurants were closed now. Johanna hurried halfway down the block to the Cantonese restaurant where they’d had dinner, and she peered through the window. The door was locked, but they could still see the owner inside.

Johanna banged on the glass. He looked up with surprise, but he came and let them in, asking no questions. Jason followed Johanna to the back of the restaurant and the table they’d been sitting at an hour earlier. She reached to the wall with both hands and removed the painting that was hung there. It was a watercolor of the same mountains, made by a different artist.

“Huangshan,” she said.

She turned the painting over, undid the clips that held the cardboard matte in place, and removed the backing. Inside, tucked behind the artwork, was a folded piece of glossy paper. When Johanna unfolded it and spread it on the table, Bourne saw a cover of Wired magazine from several years earlier. The photo had been taken in what was obviously Mr. Yuan’s office at Jumpp. He could see coding books on the shelves, Chinese artwork adorning the man’s walls, and a large family photo on his desk of Yuan’s pretty wife and daughters. Mr. Yuan himself sat behind his desk, with five people on either side of his leather office chair.

His team.

“Oh, fuck,” Johanna murmured.

Bourne knew what she was looking at. Every face in the magazine photograph had a large X drawn across it in black marker. Every face except Feng’s. Mr. Yuan. Lee. Bai. Haoyu. Caiji.

All gone. All dead.

“Feng wasn’t the first,” Bourne said. “He was the last. The Chinese already found the others.”

Johanna neatly folded the glossy paper again. She took out her wallet and carefully hid it inside. Her hands came together in front of her lips, as if she were praying. “Which means somebody else has the Files.”

*

Abbey slipped off her robe, her body still damp from the shower. She slid into bed in the darkness beside Garrett. It was two in the morning, which was a time when she would usually be writing, but she found her nerves too frayed to think. She knew she wouldn’t sleep, either. She couldn’t keep her mind off the events of the previous night.

The close call she’d had with a killer.

The knowledge that someone wanted her husband dead.

And—​­she couldn’t deny ­it—​­the return of Jason to her life.

She listened to Garrett’s breathing next to her, and she turned her head on the pillow to watch him. He lay on his back atop the blanket, naked, barely visible with the lights off and the curtains closed.

“Are you awake?” she whispered.

He replied in a soft voice a moment later. “Yes.”

“Can’t sleep?”

“No.”

“Me neither.”

They were quiet for a while. Her fingers snaked over and held his hand. Then Garrett said, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Are you still in love with him?”

Abbey knew he meant Jason. “No. I’m not.”

“You don’t have to lie, you know. If you are, you are. Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear.”

She propped herself on one elbow. “I was in love with him. Deeply. But that was the past. I couldn’t live in his world, and he could never leave it behind. So we both moved on.”

“Except now he’s back.”

“Yes, he’s back, and he brought his world with him,” Abbey said. “It reminds me how much I hate that world. It’s dangerous. Violent. Dark. And Jason, ­he—​­he fits so well inside it. I can’t be with someone who lives that way. Even if I once loved him.”

“What about him? How does he feel?”

“He feels the same way. He told me he has someone new in his life. Someone who’s more like him.”

“If you say so.”

But she could hear the doubt in his voice. She had to show him, not tell him. She came closer, molding her body against his. Her lips kissed his face. Her hand slipped between his legs and had no trouble arousing him. When she could tell that he was ready, she rose up and mounted him, feeling him slide easily inside her. They made love in the darkness, unable to see each other, but she could hear the catch of his breath and knew he was close. She pushed down hard, she squeezed, and she felt him give way in bursts of warmth. Her own body didn’t respond, but this time was for him, not her. Slowly, she sank forward, embracing him and kissing him. Then eventually she slid herself free and stretched out beside him. She held him as he fell asleep, and then she turned over and closed her eyes.

Not long after, she finally drifted to sleep, too.

And ­then—​­how long was it?—​­she bolted awake.

Her body rippled with fear. She’d been dreaming. What was it? She had the sensation that Jason had been in her arms, but she was alone. She’d heard something. Was it part of the dream?

Abbey reached over in bed and realized that it was empty. Garrett was gone. She glanced at the alarm panel on the wall, which glowed green, and she swore at herself. In the passion of sex, she’d forgotten Jason’s instructions and failed to switch on the alarm system.

Now she heard something outside. A shout. A struggle.

“Garrett!”

She got no answer.

Sleep fled. Abbey was ­wide-​­awake. In the darkness, she felt for her nightstand, and she yanked open the door and gathered her CZ P-­01 9mm into her hand. With a smooth jolt, she racked the slide and scrambled out of bed.

Another shout. It came from the balcony. She heard the thud of something heavy hitting the wall. Cold air rippled across her naked skin, and she realized that the bedroom curtains were parted and the balcony door had been swept open. She ran out onto the sprawling, multilevel deck, and the wooden beams under her bare feet were slick with dew. Both arms outstretched, both hands on the pistol, she swung in each direction.

There they were. Two of them.

A body in black. Thin, tall, strong.

And Garrett, unconscious, being dragged down the stairs.

“Stop!” Abbey screamed.

She aimed the pistol high and shot off a round. The person in ­black—​­was it a woman?—​­seemed to see her for the first time. Something flashed in her hand, something glinted in the stars. It was a blade aimed at Garrett’s throat. Abbey fired again, closer this time, and the woman dropped the body she had by the shoulders and ran, footfalls pounding down to the bottom of the deck. She disappeared into the trees toward Highway 1.

Abbey ran down the steps. She found Garrett on his back, his eyes closed. In the dim light, she could see him, could make out his face and beard, the bare skin of the man she’d made love to only minutes earlier.

Blood poured from her husband’s head.